Wanting vs. Wishing

Daniel and I have been so blessed in finding such a wonderful church here in Nashville that has truly become our home away from home!  God is clearly at work at Brentwood Baptist and He constantly uses our pastor, ministers, and people there to speak truth into our lives. 

This past Sunday, Pastor Mike spoke on a subject that has become a theme that I think the Lord is really trying to get me to get!  I'm so thankful He is patient with me and doesn't give up on me!  The theme I am talking about is the active part of faith i.e. actively seeking, actively waiting, and the list goes on.  Sounds easy, but time after time I get to a point of frustration because I'm not where I want to be in my relationship with Christ, I'm not exactly where I want to be in a career path, and even down to little things like not being a great housekeeper or not being motivated for certain things.  Every time I get frustrated, God seems to put someone or something in my path that tells me that I CAN do something about changing my situation.  So often, I just cruise through life expecting all these big things to happen that I haven't put the time in for and I'm finally really beginning to see that it just doesn't happen that way. 

Pastor Mike opened this topic of wanting vs. wishing with this illustration:
In the game of golf, you don't laugh when someone makes a bad shot, it just isn't polite and everyone has bad shots now and then. 
He and his son were playing golf and he got up to the tee box and hit a horrible shot and his son burst into laughter.  Mike said, "why are you laughing like that?"  The son replied, " You don't do anything in your swing to make the ball go where you want it to, you just get up there and wish." 

A lot of times we say we want something, but our lives don't show that we want it because we don't do anything to get there.  We settle into wishing that things will happen instead of actively working for what we want.  At the end of the message, Mike posed the question, "If we find what we want, are we willing to pay the price to get it?" 

This reminds me of the quote, "Anything worth having is worth fighting for."  And what more important thing is there to fight for than being close to Christ? 

Are you wanting or wishing today??

Ashley :)